Wind Rivers - Trip 2 (Aug 2011)

[antlerking]

I never did get my 2^nd 2011 trip posted here on Bogley. Seeing there are no Wind Rivers trips posted yet, I’ll get your blood pumping with my August 2011 trip.

This year we added another person to our trip. My friend Justin, he’s never made it to the Wind Rivers. He’s first trip was epic. He has never caught so many fish in his life plus he hooked his first golden trout. In July we made into this basin for the first time, and we landed our first golden trout. After the July trip, I started pouring over maps and Google Earth to find a better way in. There was a trail into this basin, but it was one long ars hike. I knew of a trail that wasn’t on the maps, but didn’t know how good it was. After looking at the miles we would hike on the main trail, we decided to take the game trail and the 5 miles of off trailing it.

The trail I was told about was a decent trail, its defiantly hiked every year. We made great time going in, the 5+ miles of off trail was a different story. Most of that was in the pines, and most of that was hoping over dead fall. Luck was on our side, we found a good game trail part way in. That game took us with-in ¼ mile from the main lake we camped out. We saw elk everywhere and a crap load of bear droppings on this game trail. We were going to have a good chance of running into one at some point, so we thought. We never did run into a bear, despite all the bear droppings from that spring/summer.

Creek on the way in


We had 3 day hikes planned on this trip, the first day ended up being our biggest hike of the trip. We logged 11.4 miles on our boots looking for golden trout in the wind river lakes and streams. We found new lakes that had golden trout in them (no name on the maps), I had a small arsenal of flies that the goldens love. The only problem with golden trout, they are by far the hardest trout I’ve ever fished. Luck was not on my side this morning. Travis and Justin threw out every spinner they had, with no luck. Things were looking grim for us, it didn't help the winds were howling at a steady pace all day!





We had one last lake to fish before heading off the mountain, most of the streams we fished on the way up held no fish. But that soon changed, as we turned up the inlet from our last lake we started catching golden trout. Most were small goldens, that didn't matter to us, we were catching them.




I was going for a small golden trout at the upper inlet of the last lake we fished when I noticed a big flash. Whatever it was, it sure didn't want my fly. I dropped a copper john off of my dry fly, on my second pass where I saw the flash....FISH ON! And this was one big fish. I have no idea how I managed to keep this monster golden from snapping my line, thanks to the help of Travis and Justin I was able to pull the beast out. It took all three of us to get him out of the creek. As we were heading out I landed another monster golden. This one was so beaten up from the falls in the river he was missing most of his nose and had chunks of scales taken out. He was in and out of the water for 20 seconds and wouldn’t respond. We ended up eating this one for dinner, it was by far the best trout I’ve ever eaten. We had no butter or seasoning, just a stick over the fire to cook it.

Monster Golden




After day two in the Wind Rivers hiking for Golden Trout we ended up not making it back to those lakes. We had no energy to hike the passes again. We decided to head south into another small drainage to see what it held. That was the end to our golden trout, all we caught the rest of the trip were small brookies. Well, we did find one lake with some bigger, stunted brookies.








On the way out we picked up on the game trail we followed in, it took us all the way out to the no name trail. Our time going out was fast. I have a new favorite spot in the Winds. Let’s hope it stays that way. We did run into more backpackers this trip, and they were in there for the Goldens. Nothings sacred anymore. When big fish are caught the word gets out. Just like my hunting honey holes, I keep my Winds honey holes sacred. I wish those the best of luck looking for goldens, hard hiking and arming yourself with knowledge will pay off at some point. Because there’s a big golden nugget at the end of that Wind River rainbow!

Good luck this year with all your trips.

[homerj]

YEAH! You FINALLY post this trip!!!! I'm still kicking my self for not going. Next time I don't care if I have blisters or not, I'm going!

[UTJetdog]

Great TR. Goldens are awesome, but big Goldens truely rock--nice work!